IeSF Wants International Game Tournaments Segregated By Sex [Updated]

RockDoctor (15477) writes The Guardian is reporting that a Finnish heat of an international gaming competition is being segregated into male and female branches in accordance to international rules. The International e-Sports Federation (IeSF) want "eSports" to be recognised as equivalent to physical sports. And that, it seems, requires that competitors be segregated on grounds of sex. Which may be appropriate for pole vaulters, but not necessarily appropriate for ePole vaulters. This leaves the organisers of national heats of eSports in a rather invidious position of having (in this case) a tournament only open to "Finnish male players." Update: 07/03 14:38 GMT by T : As several readers point out in the comments, this policy has been abruptly reversed.

Comments

simple fix

[sunking2]

Stop pretending video gaming is a real sport.

Re:simple fix

[khallow]

What is a "real sport" anyway?

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as we stop pretending watching people exercising on tv is a real sport.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop pretending sports are something other than games.

Re:simple fix

[lgw]

Whatever old people want it to be.

Seriously, just abandon the word "sport". It's not helping in any way. Trying to avoid "gaming" is understandable, as it means "illegal gambling" to many people, and in many laws, but there's got to be a better word than "sport".

"eSports" is trying to come down on the wrong side of the great jock-geek divide. Why do that?

Re:simple fix

[Tridus]

"real sport": Competitions I like watching on TV.
"fake sport": Competitions other people like watching on TV.

Re:simple fix

[sribe]

What is a "real sport" anyway?

Well, let's see... There has to be some kind of physical skills involved. Check. There has to be some kind of scoring system in place by which one can observe the participants and objectively declare a winner. Check.

Or, in other words: Bowling is a sport. Figure skating is not. Video games are.

Re:simple fix

[Chas]

Pretty much.

Now I don't deny that playing many of these games at the top levels involves lots of skill and practice.
But it's more akin to playing an instrument than participating a sport.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that it shouldn't have it's chance.

I think this whole ordeal can be solved relatively easily by using this Finnish league as an example of 'how not to do it'. eSports is a mainly male-dominated sector, last I checked, so I can't see why there would be a reason to divide it into gender-leagues if there are teams that have both males and females that have already found their team dynamic, or individual competitors that have fought hard to be recognized for their skill. This shouldn't be a problem, this is relatively common sense. Having played PC competitively for years, the mentality of video games as a 'boy's only club' is already an albatross around the scene, and is one that is rapidly evaporating as the female gamer is being given increasing attention as far as content, characters, and choices. As more women get into the video game scene, there should be more female eSports competitors. This seems to be a preemptive attempt to "keep the community pure", which has been a horrid notion anytime it has been used throughout history, for things far more important than competive video games.

Re:simple fix

[cloud.pt]

You mean like they still haven't done with chess?

Re:simple fix

[jeepies]

Sport: 1) a contest or game in which people do certain physical activities according to a specific set of rules and compete against each other 2) a physical activity (such as hunting, fishing, running, swimming, etc.) that is done for enjoyment

Re:simple fix

[StripedCow]

What is a "real sport" anyway?

It is essentially a freak-show. The freaks of nature win the competition.

Re:simple fix

[jeepies]

Sports involve physical activity.

Re:simple fix

[NoZart]

Chess.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why is Chess considered a sport. Sports do not require physical activity, they require competition.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Dexterity, Hand-Eye coordination, reaction time, and endurance are all physical activities. Competitive gamers do have to be physically fit.

Re:simple fix

[mwvdlee]

How about rock-paper-scissors?
[X] physical skills involved
[X] some kind of scoring system
[X] objectively declare winner
Ticks all your boxes!

Re:simple fix

[sribe]

How about rock-paper-scissors?

Yes, it's a sport. A stupid, boring, incredibly lame sport, but...

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked we don't play games with our brains. Soon though, soon! The day Brain Computer interfaces become accessible to any random person will be great.

Let's see you press a button / key 17 times per second consistently without pulling a sweat.
I can't even do 14 consistently, and I have pretty damn twitchy arms, which was great for shading in pencil, and keyboards, be it music or typing, I always beat everyone in school because of that, and annoyed teachers due to it, pretty hilarious and silly if you ask me. Why be annoyed that someone finished your work? Give'em more! (I remember he said I needed to stop lazing off in my report card one year and pay attention, I was literally better than everyone else in the class, I even got the highest score! It was like he was trying to get me in trouble or something, that dick)
I do miss school though. And now it is dust, my childhood gone.

Still, physical, if there is any level of mainly physical activity that puts the body in to an active state, it counts as physical exertion.
Games, especially competitive, make peoples hearts race as fast as any one of the four things you mentioned.
Not only that, it involves even more thinking than two of them.
Where is the physical in fishing and hunting? Sit, point and release / reel.
There is almost the same level of physical activity in a Wii game than there is both of those.
Oh, sure, that includes walking to the place does it, so that makes literally everything a sport by proxy.

Re:simple fix

[Nutria]

By definition (sport: an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature), chess is not a sport. It's a game.

("Sport" is a subset of "Game", but idiomatically some sports -- trap shooting for example -- are not considered "games".)

Re:simple fix

[mwvdlee]

What about Bingo?

Bingo involves the physical act of moving your hand to tick the scorecard, and there's a clear, objective winner.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, do you think that these cheetos and mountain dew diet is because they just like it? They have to maintain their body.

Re: simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

So does masturbation. We can score several metrics objectively, and segregation by gender is definitely convenient. Do we get federated? When is the Redtube Cup?

Re:simple fix

[Tridus]

Is it? Go to a busy street corner and ask 100 people if they think Chess is a sport. The overwhelming majority will say no.

Chess is a sport in the same way that spelling bees are a sport - they're not. They are competitions with rules and winners though (like sports).

Re:simple fix

[The_PS4_Will_Fail]

Life involves physical activity. Where do you draw the line? What's enough "physical activity" to qualify? Is Jeopardy a sport? There's physical activity involved in pressing that motherfucking button, right?

What about charades? Obviously no one plays charades in real life but they do it in movies so let's analyze it like it's a real thing. There can be quite a bit of physical activity there and there is scoring with an objective winner. Is that a sport? If so, why is that a sport but Monopoly isn't?

The physical activity bit just feels like a terrible line to draw because it is so arbitrary and hard to judge.

How about this: people can call whatever the fuck they want a sport and then we just go with it.

Re:simple fix

[KiloByte]

Does this mean for me all sports are fake?

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Chess involves physical movement, and it's competitive. Damn fool.

Re:simple fix

[dale.furno]

You're not the only one.

Re:simple fix

[jeIlomizer]

Then anything could be a sport. And it probably could be, because these terms are ambiguous as hell.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

So does playing a game.

Let's see you laze around while actively playing a game and see you lose spectacularly at it.
The majority of an active gamers body is tensed up while playing games. Heartbeat reaches that of a person running very actively.
They require their entire arms and fingers to be able to switch between activities incredibly quickly, which also requires a huge mental component to it too.
Gaming is more bodily demanding than a run is.

Unless they have so much fat that their body alone can keep itself upright without effort. Fat gamers are not gamers, they aren't even real people, just shadows of people that once existed. Extremely huge sunrise / sunset shadows that is. They should be BBQ'd. Actually maybe not, they'd taste like soda drinks and potato snacks.

Re:simple fix

[Rhaban]

Then why is Chess considered a sport. Sports do not require physical activity, they require competition.

Because people are afraid of the word "game".

Chess is a game. Not a sport. Football is a sport and a game. Running is a sport and not a game.

Re:simple fix

[Chris Mattern]

How about rock-paper-scissors?
[X] physical skills involved
[X] some kind of scoring system
[X] objectively declare winner
Ticks all your boxes!

And guess what? It's a sport!

Re:simple fix

[sunking2]

Apparently something where men and women perform differently.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

So would you say boxing is not a real sport, since matches frequently go to judges?

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, the:
(skill or physical prowess) and competitive.
Video games require skill and physical prowess and are competitive.
So they are sports by that definition. and so is chess.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Sports represent anything that fakes reality.
For instance, javelin throwing, the sport, is something that soldiers used to do on the battle field. A fake.
Just like many others, sports are copies of actions without the consequences.
Calling video games a sport is not wrong. (not right either, but that's not the point here)

Re:simple fix

[sribe]

Bingo involves the physical act of moving your hand to tick the scorecard, and there's a clear, objective winner.

I think it's arguable, because that act is not a skill, and there's not a whole lot of variation in how well people do it. I think winning involves the purely mental act of being first to notice that the just-drawn ball completes your bingo, and that the placement of the marker comes after, just to keep track before the next round starts.

Re:simple fix

[sir-gold]

If figure skating isn't a sport solely because it's not objective, then there are a lot of Olympic sports that aren't actually sports either (high-dive, gymnastics,etc) as well as most of the X-games (freestyle BMX, half-pipe, etc)

By your definition, any sport that is subjectively rated by technique, instead of objectively rated by pre-defined goals, isn't a sport.

Re:simple fix

[GNious]

Bingo involves the physical act of moving your hand to tick the scorecard, and there's a clear, objective winner.

I think it's arguable, because that act is not a skill...

Go to bingo-night, see the ones running 10+ bingo cards, and still manages to tick off all the numbers being called :)

Re:simple fix

[RockDoctor]

Pron is a sport? Sorry, "spurt."

Re:simple fix

[RockDoctor]

But it's more akin to playing an instrument than participating a sport.

If I had a spare pair of ear defenders (or two), I'd head up the road to the local highland games (I think it's Braemar this weekend, but I'm not sure) and ask the competitors in the bagpipes competition if they're more or less sportsmen than the caber-tossers.

Can I use your name when I ask?

Re:simple fix

[tlhIngan]

Life involves physical activity. Where do you draw the line? What's enough "physical activity" to qualify? Is Jeopardy a sport? There's physical activity involved in pressing that motherfucking button, right?

When physical activity is required in order to get better at the sport. You don't train for chess by moving pieces around the board, for example, so not a sport. You don't train for "eSports" by typing on the keyboard (it certainly can help, but it doesn't help you become a better player because of it).

Soccer is a sport because training by running around and chasing a ball DOES help you become better at it. Likewise chasing a puck around a rink makes Hockey a sport.

Hitting lots of balls and running makes you a better baseball player.

Thus, the main physical activity you do in the sport, you have to keep doing to get better at it.

Sure, learning to type and practicing typing can help you get your APM up in StarCraft, but being a brilliant typist does NOT make you good at StarCraft.

Of course, the more questionable area is in motorsports - where physical training DOES help you become better, but is not sufficient enough to become good (being able to withstand the forces and all that make you a better driver, but it's not all physical).

Re:simple fix

[nhat11]

I would +1 this if I had some points lol

Re:simple fix

[sribe]

If figure skating isn't a sport solely because it's not objective, then there are a lot of Olympic sports that aren't actually sports either (high-dive, gymnastics,etc) as well as most of the X-games (freestyle BMX, half-pipe, etc)

I was being simplistic in that sarcastic comment. The thing is, that figure skating (along with all the other sports you mention) does absolutely have objective criteria for much of the scoring. But in figure skating, far, far, more than any other sport, the judges have a long history of simply ignoring the objective criteria when they so desire.

Re:simple fix

[sribe]

Go to bingo-night, see the ones running 10+ bingo cards, and still manages to tick off all the numbers being called :)

Yes, but they don't tick them off before calling bingo, because if they did, they wouldn't win ;-)

Re:simple fix

[IgnitusBoyone]

This is completely arbitrary. Your basically saying practicing in the sport makes you better at it, but only if I find that practice to be a physical activity.

You do become better at star craft from typing keys. You do this by running small practice runs and skirmishes.
You do become better at chess by moving pieces around the board, but you do it in practice runs or skirmishes. Hell some people play themselves. Which is no different then running a track and trying to beat your best times.

Additionally in all of these activities playing other similar activities helps you improve your performance such as similar games in the genre and non genre games with similar concepts and mechanics.

Sports has nothing to do with physical activity. It has to do with regulated competition with a general oversight and a community of people who wish to push the limits of previous performance. Oh, and in my opinion you have to be able to drink to it and bet on it.

Re:simple fix

[Karmashock]

True. That said, sports shouldn't be segregated by sex in any case.

Why is it better for women to be able to say they're the best women player then being able to say they're the 200th best player in either sex?

Its the same thing.

Let them compete against the men.

They're 21st century women. They want to go into the fire... to compete... do it and be done.

Now if you're concerned about women getting hurt... that's sports. Men get hurt all the time. They get concussions. They tear ligaments. They break bones.

Might women get hurt more? Possibly... but mostly we'll just have to accept female injuries the same way we accept male injuries.

In stride. Man gets hurt doing something dangerous you had the guy a beer and tell him to tough it out. Do the same thing to the women.

There is no crying in baseball.

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

No, for you, "the bachelor" is a real sport.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Trap shooting can be a very kinky and strenuous sport but rather enjoyable when the bullet is able to pierce well inside the target.

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

Well rock-paper-scissors is physical in the sense that you can't play it without atoms/molecules/energy/etc (i.e. physics). But the game itself is basically random (if you do it right).

You don't need any physical skills beyond having a semi-functioning physical body. Having a body and being able to move your arms and hands is physical I guess. Would you really call this a skill? Are the rock-paper-scissor champions more skilled compared to the mediocre in any regard other than luck?

rock paper scissors is as as physical and as skill based as flipping a coin or playing high low.

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

Science has basically abandoned Descartes concept of dualism (i.e. that mind and body are separate). We now know that the mind is in the brain and is just as physical as the rest of our bodies. Chess is a game which requires incredible mental skill. And since the brain is physical, mental skills *are* physical skills.

Re:simple fix

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Is chess or poker a sport? I would classify professional video-gamers in the same category as professional chess players or professional poker players...

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

Go to a busy street and ask 100 people whether the Bible is true.

Re:simple fix

[Samantha Wright]

Figure skating just hasn't developed far enough yet—throw in a few mocap suits and compare the recorded data to an ideal performance. Root mean standard deviation == your score. Simple!

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell claims that watching is a sport?

Re:simple fix

[viperidaenz]

It's not like these games are mind-controlled.
There is much physical finger movement.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

funny, but RPS doesn't require physical skill.

Re:simple fix

[Nutria]

And since the brain is physical, mental skills *are* physical skills.

Nice try, but no.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

The main issue is that at the level of competition in question (professional and olympic), all the competitors would be men if women didn't get a separate league in most sports (and the sports where being small and having a lower center of mass are an advantage would be all women).

That is in practice not any different from simply prohibiting athletes of the "wrong" sex from competing.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Faster physical motions will clearly give you an advantage in tennis. I'd say that's a sport.

Faster physical motions will not give you an advantage in chess. I'd say that's not a sport.

Faster typing will give you an advantage in starcraft, so I suppose it's a sport, but just barely.

Re:simple fix

[Darinbob]

"real sport": ESPN channels 1 through 3
"fake sport": ESPN channels 4 and above

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

Apparently logic and science are no match for unsupported opinion.

Re:simple fix

[Nutria]

Apparently logic

That's the key. GGP's argument is apparently logical, but fails because physical activity means "movement of the body", and even though the "mind" is nothing but the emergent property of all those neuron firing in the brain, there's still no physical activity in playing chess.

If you consider "lifting your arm to move the chess piece" to be physical activity, then sitting on the couch and moving your arm to consume beer and Cheetos is also physical activity, but that's sedentary behavior -- very low energy expenditure in a sitting or reclining posture.

IOW, my "opinion" is not unsupported, but a fully supported thought, and GGP's "logic" is full of definitional flaws, and thus a fallacy.

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

That's the key. GGP's argument is apparently logical, but fails because physical activity means "movement of the body", and even though the "mind" is nothing but the emergent property of all those neuron firing in the brain, there's still no physical activity in playing chess. If you consider "lifting your arm to move the chess piece" to be physical activity, then sitting on the couch and moving your arm to consume beer and Cheetos is also physical activity, but that's sedentary behavior -- very low energy expenditure in a sitting or reclining posture. IOW, my "opinion" is not unsupported, but a fully supported thought, and GGP's "logic" is full of definitional flaws, and thus a fallacy.

Nice try, but no.

Re:simple fix

[Nutria]

So... show me where my reasoning is flawed.

Re:simple fix

[Karmashock]

Your point being?

Is the point to remove discrimination or to have some statistical equality?

If we're talking about a sports competition then why stop at gender... why not divide it on race as well... look at how many sports white people aren't competitive in any more... well... apparently they need their own leagues by this logic... and then we can look at ideologies or religions and possibly divide people that way too.

I'm tired of people trying to have it both ways.

Do you care about discrimination or do you want to have special privileges? Because its one or the other.

You claim both and I'm taking one of them.

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

Mental activity *is* physical activity according to the definition of "physical". Maybe you want to change your definition of sport to be require "significant non-mental physical activity" or better yet "significant muscular activity".

Even digestion is a physical activity.

This is like saying "Don't eat processed food, it's full of chemicals", when in reality every food is made up entirely of chemicals. Equating "harmful chemicals" to "chemicals" is scientifically inaccurate, because it incorrectly implies that other substances are not chemicals. Equating "bodily movement (i.e. human kinetics)" as "physical" is scientifically inaccurate because it incorrectly implies that other phenomena (like mental activity) are not physical. They certainly aren't metaphysical as previously thought.

Also, bowling and pool are pretty sedentary as well.

Re:simple fix

[SCPRedMage]

Boxing is not a sport, but not for that reason.

Re:simple fix

[geniice]

In most physical sorts women wouldn't make the male top 200. Getting hurt isn't the problem. Female competitions seem result in injuries at much the same rate as male ones. The problem is purely that men are on average bigger faster and stronger.

Why female sports mostly exist because of tradition they provide a useful purpose in providing structure to women to exercise within and provide more sport that can be watched for those who enjoy that.

Re:simple fix

[Nutria]

So, sitting on the couch, doing "12oz curls", is physical activity....

I'll go tell all the psychiatrists & psychologists that /. says they're actually physical therapists, and mathematicians are actually performing vigorous physical activity when they're thinking really hard.

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

So, sitting on the couch, doing "12oz curls", is physical activity....

It is indeed, although it's probably not a physical activity that would be considered to improve your physical fitness.

I'll go tell all the psychiatrists & psychologists that /. says they're actually physical therapists,

They are physical therapists in the same sense that our food has chemicals in it. These terms are so broad as to be non-descriptive in many contexts.

So yes psychiatrists are also physical therapists, they are also homo sapiens, humans, primates, mammals, vertebrates, animals, carbon-based lifeforms, cells, molecules, atoms, leptons and hadrons.

You can describe a psychiatrist as a bunch of subatomic particles if you want to be as nondescript as possible.

The fact that psychiatrists are actually affecting physical states rather than metaphysical states, does not mean they are no longer psychiatrists.

and mathematicians are actually performing vigorous physical activity when they're thinking really hard.

It sort of depends on what you consider to be "vigorous" and how you want to compare muscular activity to mental activity. The human brain actually uses a lot of energy to operate. IT only accounts for 2% of the mass of a human body, but it uses 20% of the energy when the the body is at rest. It uses somewhere between 12 and 20 watts of energy.

You can use your energy to run a computer to find the answer to a problem. Or you can think about it really hard, or you can use that energy to ride a bike. It all ends up as heat and expended ATP (or decreased electric potential in the case of the computer).

I don't have the exact numbers, but thinking really hard about a math problem could conceivably use more energy than playing a game of pool or a round of bowling.

Re:simple fix

[Nutria]

It is indeed, although it's probably not a physical activity that would be considered to improve your physical fitness.

This is why "normal" people hate nerds & geeks.

Obviously, 12oz curls are a physical activity, but no one in their right, non-Aspergers minds actually calls it a "physical activity" in the sense used by everyone except pedantic ass-wipes. (No, that is not an ad hominem attack, because I have facts and definitions on my side.

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/phys/ Physical activity is any body movement that works your muscles and requires more energy than resting.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sport an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/sport An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others

I don't have the exact numbers

Right, because there are no numbers showing what you are hoping can be pulled out of your arse.

Re:simple fix

[TsuruchiBrian]

This is why "normal" people hate nerds & geeks.

Don't worry, those "normal" people don't know how special you really are.

Obviously, 12oz curls are a physical activity, but no one in their right, non-Aspergers minds actually calls it a "physical activity" in the sense used by everyone except pedantic ass-wipes. (No, that is not an ad hominem attack, because I have facts and definitions on my side.

Even if you did have "facts and definitions on your side", this is still an ad hominem attack which is in addition to whatever other arguments you have.

Like if I said "How could you be right, you are clearly a mental retard for choosing the worst definition for the word "physical", it would be an ad hominem attack in addition to whatever other arguments I may have.

Physical activity is any body movement that works your muscles and requires more energy than resting.

I am apparently going to drop a bombshell and let you in on the secret that wrods have multiple definitions. That's what the numbers in the dictionary entries mean. You can thank me later for blowing your mind.

an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature

An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others

These two are particularly irrelevant given the fact that we are actually debating what should be considered "physical".

Right, because there are no numbers showing what you are hoping can be pulled out of your arse.

I am showing that the brain uses energy to operate. And there are numbers that show that, and I presented them. The only numbers I don't have is how much more energy is used by thinking really hard, because it is disputed. The fact that the brain uses energy is not disputed by any legitimate scientists.

Re:simple fix

[khallow]

Mental activity *is* physical activity according to the definition of "physical".

There is no "the" definition of physical. Your argument depends on substituting your choice of definition of "physical" for the other poster's definition of "physical". That makes it not a logical argument, but rather a semantics game.

Re:simple fix

[Chas]

Feel free bub.

Threats impress me even less than e-sports. If such a thing is technically possible within the bounds of our universe...

Re:simple fix

[Karmashock]

we're not talking about high school volleyball. Desegregate the Olympics and professional sports.

Or give me what I want... which is the admission that you want special privileges.

And in return for that acknowledgement, I'll claim the right to veto anti discrimination claims in any area where women or any other group claims special privileges.

You get one in return for the other.

You want to be protected from competition? Fine. But then you can't claim discrimination in those areas either.

For example, lets say a women wants to join the NBA or the male Olympics or any other situation where you've carved out these rules.

The answer would be no. Join the women's league. end of discussion. This would of course extend to the military which is actually where I want to go with this argument.

Women are being tested differently then men. That amounts to a special privilege which is fine but it means we are acknowledging men are not the same as women at an official level.

And that means you can't use discrimination laws to force the military to accept women into situations they deem a poor idea.

I don't really care about professional sports of the Olympics. I care about things that are a threat to our society. And the anti discrimination laws are not good for the US Navy, Marines, Army, Army Rangers, or Airforce.

The women often are not up to the same physical standards and yet are passed through because some fucktard wants to hit some statistical number like a robot.

If they're up to the same physical challenge and can compete... then have them compete.

if they're not then they're not the same and you can't cite anti discrimination.

That's all I'm saying. I think the logic is indisputable.

Re:simple fix

[KiloByte]

I don't watch crap TV shows either. And I'm not aware of a non-crap one.

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone else has already asked, "what is a real sport"?

Darts, Snooker, Pool, Bowling are all sports.

I love playing Snooker/Pool, but if they are considered sports then various forms of gaming should also be considered as a sport ... eSport!

Re:simple fix

[tragedy]

Faster physical motions will not give you an advantage in chess. I'd say that's not a sport.

So chess is not a sport, but speed chess is?

Re:simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently IeSF is unaware of Equestrian events in the Olympics, or most motorsports, where gender is considered irrelevant.

And the reversal is far from that. Instead there is an open category, and a protected for the weaker sex category. There is no other way to say it honestly.

-1 for patriarchy....

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, and finland?
-1 for white privilege.

Like we need to discourage the fairer sex any more

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't enough female gamers out there professionally as is! All this will do is narrow the spectrum of professional e-sports players!

Absolutely bloody crazy! What were they THINKING?

the real reason?

[Cardoor]

maybe its that some already ego-threatened gamers can't stomach the idea of being beaten by a GURL? jeez... man up maybe it's a finnish inferiority complex..

Re:the real reason?

[Marneus68]

The real reason apparently is that real sports all are "Segregated By Sex". They just wanted to be a real sports league I guess.

Re:the real reason?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you also tell negro's that they are all dirty thieves and welfare mouchers and should go back to Africa?

Just wanted to know how consistent your bigotry is being applied.

Re:the real reason?

[Cardoor]

yearning to emulate sexist/exclusive behavior with no fundamental reason (eg, a valid physiological rationale) other than wanting to 'be recognized' by other sexist/exclusive groups is not something i support.

Re:the real reason?

[hendrips]

If you read up on the IeSF, it becomes much more clear what is going on.

-The IeSF is a South Korean organization; it is not Finnish. Ok, technically, it has a number of "member nations," but it is dominated by South Koreans. This tournament in Finland was a local qualifier for a larger international tournament. The local (Finnish) tournament organizers protested against the male-only rule, but couldn't convince the IeSF to relent until the media backlash started.

-The people who run the the IeSF aren't young male hormonal gamers. They are, by and large, middle-aged male executives at media and marketing companies. Their ultimate goal is to become the equivalent of the International Olympic Committee of e-sports, so that their companies can commercialize e-sports in the same way the Olympics were commercialized. However, they haven't been all that successful yet - they don't control any big-name tournaments in any of the games that I follow.

-As I mentioned already, the guys making the rules are older Koreans. I'll quote an interesting anecdote I saw on Ars Technica's comments:

Koreans can be remarkably thoughtlessly sexist (and racist, etc) without thinking about the broader implications. This is highly visible every time you park a car in a modern shopping center - there are reserved spots for women. The parking lanes (marked in pink) are wider and closer to the entrances. These aren't parking spots for expectant mothers or women with small children. These are parking spots for all women, with forethought that they're doing women a favor because they can't park cars as well as men. Westerners see this kind of thing and are instantly offended by the blatant sexism. A Korean will be confused as to why you don't see that women are obviously better off this way.

Re:the real reason?

[mwvdlee]

Three words in reply to the "real sports are all segregated by sex" argument: "Mixed doubles tennis".

Re:the real reason?

[Cardoor]

in that case, i apologize for chastising (albeit in a tongue in cheek manner) fins in any way. sounds like its (unsurprisingly) about old moneyed men making rules to perpetuate the status quo and their wallets. glad to see people are realizing so many of these old ideas are stale

Re:the real reason?

[Oligonicella]

The word "all" was indeed incorrect, but sports that do not have an enforced male/female ratio are segregated for good reason.

Re:the real reason?

[Chris Mattern]

Which is segregated by sex. You *must* have one man, and one woman. You can't have a man in the woman's slot, you can't have a woman in the man's slot.

Re:the real reason?

[RockDoctor]

Oh no - they (the IeSF) want to change the status quo. In favour of their (or their corporate overlords') wallets, of course.

Re:the real reason?

[Anonymous Coward]

Curling.

Re:the real reason?

[jxander]

There's no good reason for curling in the first place, let alone gender divides within curling.

Re:the real reason?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only female who has ever been competitive at StarCraft is TossGirl, who is famous for qualifying to play for STX Soul and playing show matches against Boxer.

In SC2, there is one female who is competitive - Scarlett - but psst, don't say this out loud, but she's a transsexual, not that that means anything you understand, transwomen are just as female as ciswomen.

So yeah, there is absolutely no case for eSports to be sexually segregated; that sounds dirty you pervert. Koreans are really surprisingly sexist, they need more education if they want to take part in the global economy.

Sex?

[Sir_Eptishous]

requires that competitors be segregated on grounds of sex

Right, those that have sex with a partner and those that don't.

Re:Sex?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sex" is the right word. Can you imagine the mess if they tried to segregate based on "Gender"?

Re:Sex?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come, come. 'Sex' is the correct word. As my grammar teachers used to say, "People have sex, words have gender." Never forgot THAT rule.

Re:Sex?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly that's not true any more. Welcome to newspeak, where you can have a penis but still be a "woman." One is sex (the penis part) the other is "gender" according to our new "politically correct" overlords.

Re:Sex?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Right, those that have sex with a partner and those that don't.

Makes it easy - rent one giant auditorium and one meeting room.

Re:Sex?

[CronoCloud]

Welcome to newspeak, where you can have a penis but still be a "woman." One is sex (the penis part) the other is "gender" according to our new "politically correct" overlords.

It's not "newspeak" or "politically correct", it's how things actually are. Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld figured that out almost a century ago.

Sex is what parts you have, Gender is how you feel about yourself (and how you feel about the parts).

Re:Sex?

[Nephandus]

Funny, I've never felt "like a man" and never managed to get anyone to describe such without using language like "real man" to try to shame me into some transitive cultural stereotype that had nothing to do with my biology.

Do you have even one brain scan show neural dimorphism in the "wrong" body? Someone who likes to play with cultural props and learned behaviors doesn't constitute a member of the associated sex. "Flamboyant" gay males nowadays get called "effeminate" for acting with strange mannerisms most females never do, and things like cars are called "sexy" without having to be sexually arousing to anyone, so I'm not taking pop culture's word for shit, especially in this context.

Re:Sex?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to newspeak, where you can have a penis but still be a "woman." One is sex (the penis part) the other is "gender" according to our new "politically correct" overlords.

It's not "newspeak" or "politically correct", it's how things actually are. Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld figured that out almost a century ago.

Sex is what parts you have, Gender is the collection of behavioral stereotypes associated with those parts for log obsolete reasons.

Fixed that for ya'

Re:Sex?

[Darinbob]

Especially since the Finnish language has no gender...

Re:Sex?

[CronoCloud]

Do you have even one brain scan show neural dimorphism in the "wrong" body?

The only evidence that I've seen that anyone has done have been LeVay's brain studies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

So yes, this is something that perhaps ought to be looked into. But considering that bodies can have variant intersex conditions, why couldn't the brain be "intersexed" sometimes.

Re:Sex?

[Anonymous Coward]

requires that competitors be segregated on grounds of sex

Right, those that have sex with a partner and those that don't.

And how is that different from dividing players based on gender?

Cargo-Cult Sociology

[Hentai]

"I don't know why it's important for physical sports to have gender segregation, but they do it and people recognize them as legitimate! If we segregate by gender, maybe that's what will make people recognize us as legitimate!"

Just like in programming, this line of thinking clearly translates down to "I have no idea what I'm doing, and I have no idea what the consequences of these choices are, but I'm just going to bang at things until something works or everything breaks."

(Spoiler alert: usually, everything breaks.)

Re:Cargo-Cult Sociology

[khallow]

(Spoiler alert: usually, everything breaks.)

Damn. I was going to see that movie! :(

Re:Cargo-Cult Sociology

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... well... try telling that to women tennis players. They want to be paid MORE per set than men by demanding equal prize money.

The suggestion that they should just get rid of the separate men/women tournament is greeted with horror... why... because the highest ranked woman tennis player ever wouldn't even take a set off any man in the top 300.

They would never win a penny playing tennis.

Re:Cargo-Cult Sociology

[Arker]

Tennis is a game that features intense bursts of activity and places a premium on quickness and agility. In other words, it favors males.

Applying the logic that works with tennis to a sport where males have no intrinsic advantage really fits the title (Cargo-Cult Sociology) perfectly.

Re:Cargo-Cult Sociology

[jellomizer]

NASCAR doesn't have gender segregation, Men and Women can compete in NASCAR. Granted there are not a lot of women NASCAR drivers. But they are a few and they can compete with the men.

I would say unless there is a statistical evidence that gender will give someone an advantage or disadvantage in terms of performance, I say let anyone play.

Re:Cargo-Cult Sociology

[Anonymous Coward]

Entirely reasonable. Don't say it anywhere near Tumblr.

Re:Cargo-Cult Sociology

[Anonymous Coward]

FIrst of all no-one applied tennis to anything. I just made a point about women's hypocrisy in the tennis world.

Anyway I've got news for you pal... men outperform women is virtually every sport. I think it's basically down to extreme long distance running where there is any sort of parity.

In fact... if you look at the top performers in virtually ANYTHING... it's men. Even acitivities that are typically regarded as "female".

So take your PC bullshit and stick up your mangina.

not the norm in other non-athletic competitions

[Trepidity]

Poker tournaments aren't gender-segregated, for example, and they are probably one of the more successful non-athletic sports. The main chess competitions are also open to people of any gender.

There are sometimes gender-specific events, but they are promotional/recruiting things rather than the main event. For example there's a Women's World Chess Championship, but some of the best chess-playing women choose not to enter it, and enter the main (gender-integrated) tournaments instead.

Re:not the norm in other non-athletic competitions

[cloud.pt]

I'm betting this has something to do with the amount of money poker moves around and live tournaments' marketing influence on online poker spending. As opposed to online tournaments, which have a fraction of the marketing influence on games profitability.

You rarely see gambling-centered regulation making much waves because winners and losers want to avoid such regulations. One out of greed and the other out of vice. So lobbying is pretty easy for most things gambling.

Re:not the norm in other non-athletic competitions

[Dr. Gamera]

A similar situation exists in the card game bridge. There are three major classes of events: open (men and women), women's (only), and senior (old men and old women). There are some mixed events as well (each partnership must have one man and one woman). Teams including a woman win open events from time to time, including at the highest levels. However, by sheer numbers, most of the top players are male -- notwithstanding the era in which Dorothy Hayden Truscott may have been the best player of either sex in the world.

Re:not the norm in other non-athletic competitions

[phantomfive]

Poker tournaments aren't gender-segregated, for example, and they are probably one of the more successful non-athletic sports. The main chess competitions are also open to people of any gender.

I don't think there is any sport that is specifically male-only. Sometimes women do well in baseball, for example

Re:not the norm in other non-athletic competitions

[Trepidity]

I believe professional baseball in the U.S. is officially male-only, or at least it used to be. Jackie Mitchell was briefly pitcher for a minor-league AA team in 1931, but the commissioner expelled her from the league after it came to his attention.

Re:not the norm in other non-athletic competitions

[CastrTroy]

That was in 1931. I think that things have changed in the last 83 years. It wasn't so long ago (1947) that Jackie Robinson became the first black MLB player. A good example is Manon Rheaume who actually got an NHL contract. Although she only played in 2 exhibition games, and she only played 1 period of her first game.

to help future generations of dorky male teens..

[Cardoor]

im old now and happily married.. but if i was still a teenager, i would really appreciate anything that could be done to encourage more girls (preferably hot ones) to pick up gaming.. (so they could come over to my house and play). these regulations are cock-blocking our dorky-teen brethren!!

Pole Vaulting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did they really have to use pole vaulting as an example? Are they TRYING to bait the 13-year-old male readers?

Re:Pole Vaulting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe jumping over Poles is a popular sport in Finland

Re:Pole Vaulting?

[sir-gold]

Maybe jumping over Poles is a popular sport in Finland

I heard it was popular in Germany back in the 1940s....

Re:Pole Vaulting?

[RockDoctor]

I chose to use pole vaulting as an example, and yes the innuendo potential did not escape me.

No Longer News

[Anonymous Coward]

They already changed their stance.

http://ie-sf.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=iesf_notice&wr_id=105

Re:No Longer News

[Guspaz]

They changed their stance slightly, they're still going for gender-segregated tournaments. They'll have "mixed" and "female-only" tournaments. That isn't an improvement.

Re:No Longer News

[Anonymous Coward]

Since that link has already been slashdotted, and goes to a Korean "traffic exceeded" page: Google cache

interesting times...

[gandhi_2]

i see this debate in shooting sports going the other way.

there really aren't any good reasons why a female should be a worse marksman or shooting competitor than a male. in fact, small efficient muscles and better color eyesight make females more ideal than males.

so a lot of people think that there should be no gender seperation in shooting sport competitions, and I tend to agree. but for some reason, the top females can never quite break into the top levels with the top males. just last year, Jessie Duff became the first female USPSA grand master-level shooter. on paper, there's no reason why they can't be as competitive as the guys, but in reality it just hasn't happened. so we end up with segregated competitions (in most cases. there ARE plenty of gender-immeterial competitions out there) to keep it "fair".

disclaimer: i will never be able to compete against the competitive girls.

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it a bad thing to have the best woman shooter in the world be placed 200th overall when you include the men? Why is it bad if she never wins a major tournament because other shooters are better then her?

Re:interesting times...

[hweimer]

so a lot of people think that there should be no gender seperation in shooting sport competitions, and I tend to agree. but for some reason, the top females can never quite break into the top levels with the top males.

This is simply not true. Margeret Murdock won a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics (she lost the battle for gold under very controversial circumstances) and set four individual world records. In the eighties, most shooting sports became gender-segregated, the only exceptions being skeet and trap, which became gender-segregated right after a woman (Zhang Shan) had won the gold medal in the skeet competition in 1992. There are other examples as well.

So, if today's women are no longer competitive with men, then that's certainly a consequence of gender segregation and not an argument for it.

Re:interesting times...

[Nutria]

I don't think that GP is saying that it's bad, just that it is.

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

small efficient muscles and better color eyesight make females more ideal than males.

Uh. So then it's good that is segregated by gender, otherwise females would have the upper hand in the competition.

Re:interesting times...

[mwvdlee]

+1 insightful. Wish I hadn't already commented.

Re:interesting times...

[gandhi_2]

ahh, the "certain amazonian society" argument whereby someone seeks to argue against the prevalent facts by citing some small exceptions.

of course there will be a few exceptionally talented black swans that show up from time to time. these are exceptions to the rule.

for the year-after-year slog of shooters making their way to various competitions up to the top... WPW's, Camp Perry, USPSA nationals, IPSC championships, and all the hundreds of others, including the olympics, the males statistically dominate the top.

as far as I know, none of the scores are scaled differently for male vs female. the courses-of-fire are generally the same. the scores can be compared apples-to-apples, but we just hand out more trophies. females don't do worse BECAUSE of the separation, that is ridiculous.

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

he says "but in reality it just hasn't happened. so we end up with segregated competitions"

My point is why is it a foregone conclusion that we end up with segregated competitions. Why can't we have integrated competitions and the woman just lose because they can't compete.

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because then people's feelings would be hurt. Can't have that. The sexists who look down on women are disgraced when women are put in their presence.

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually i thought it was because the eyes evovled for different tasks in Men and Women, Men with typically more tunel vision spatial viewing and women have more of peripheral watch everything vision

Re:interesting times...

[Kielistic]

Male physiology is no advantage whatsoever in shooting sports.

[Citation needed]

I may be wrong but I am fairly certain males tend to perform better in spacial reasoning tasks as well as reaction times.

Re:interesting times...

[RockDoctor]

Hmmm, interesting.

If I hadn't come across ("fnarr, fnarr") pole vaulting as a comparison, then I might have lit upon shooting ("fnarr, fnarr"), if only because a friend's daughter was a serious competitor for a place on the national biathlon team on that winter sports thingy recently (the thing with the logo of rings ; sorry, not a very sporty person myself). (That's cross-country skiing and target shooting, for those that don't know or have forgotten already.)

But yeah - good example with no obvious reasons for gender segregation, but the segregation persists.

Another random piece of data that floats in my mental files is that many of the biggest salmon hooked in Scottish rivers have been caught by women. And that is really confusing, particularly for the patriarchs.

Re:interesting times...

[serviscope_minor]

[Citation needed]

I may be wrong but I am fairly certain males tend to perform better in spacial reasoning tasks as well as reaction times.

To put it in your words: [citation needed] and also with reference to how these help with shooting.

Re:interesting times...

[Kielistic]

Are you serious?

Spacial reasoning is probably the most important skill in shooting. How could you possibly think that judging distances and positions and how to align them is not paramount to shooting?

When tracking and hitting a moving target I would think that reaction time's importance would be obvious.

As to the rest: reaction time males vs female and spacial

These are both fairly well understood. I put "[Citation needed]" because the GP's statement was demonstrably false.

Re:interesting times...

[drinkypoo]

Another random piece of data that floats in my mental files is that many of the biggest salmon hooked in Scottish rivers have been caught by women

("fnarr, fnarr")

Re:interesting times...

[gandhi_2]

hence my original post.... that females on paper should be able to compete just fine with males and there's no reason to hand out separate awards.

females do compete on equal terms, but their scores are compared only to other females for awards. you are blaming the symptom for causing the disease.

Re:interesting times...

[shaitand]

"of course there will be a few exceptionally talented black swans that show up from time to time. these are exceptions to the rule."

AKA Champions. If you aren't an exceptionally talented black swan you aren't a champion and shouldn't be called one. First, if you can't win the game on a level playing field with all genders and weight classes, you aren't really a champion. Second, assuming girls could never do this is highly sexist. Third, if you genuinely believe girls can't do this, then propping them up artificially to have a higher number encouraged to compete seems counterproductive. If they can't win, they shouldn't be wasting their lives trying to perform tasks they aren't very well equipped to do but instead shown champions in areas where males tend to fall down in a fair, even, and not segregated competition.

Re:interesting times...

[shaitand]

I can't think of any reason to segregate by gender. If the males can't compete they SHOULD be discouraged by the lack of male champions and if the girls can't compete they should have said discouragement. We shouldn't artificially be generating encouragement for people to waste their lives trying to be something they have a snowballs chance in hell of being.

If gender isn't a factor that will come through in time. If it is, that will come through. More males will flock toward things where males are better equipped and females flock toward things where they are better equipped and the only people who will be upset about it are those who are trying to assert that such differences don't exist. And since they'd be wrong in that case, they too should be discouraged.

Basically, everyone should have to take a dose of reality and be encouraged or discouraged in proportion to how things actually are.

Re:interesting times...

[steam_cannon]

Better color eyesight is a disadvantage for hunting and probably military type games where the enemy may hide. Color differentiation is great for picking the right berries, but in hunting, more colors means more visual noise. Since it's a game, women could possibly set their screen colors to simulate deuteranopia (red-green colorblindness) and possibly pick up that advantage.

Example of what camo looks like to color blind: http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sg...

Camo picture is from this source: http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sg...

Military experiences: http://www.reddit.com/r/todayi...

Colorblindness is a hunting advantage for primates such as capuchins. http://discovermagazine.com/20...

Re:interesting times...

[serviscope_minor]

Are you serious?

Yep.

Spacial reasoning is probably the most important skill in shooting. How could you possibly think that judging distances and positions and how to align them is not paramount to shooting?

Well, from the wikipedia article on spatial intelligence:

Spatial Intelligence is an area in the theory of multiple intelligences that deals with spatial judgment and the ability to visualize with the mind's eye.

I'm not really sure that has to do with lining stuff up because that's not a reasoning thing. Not that it matters because:

and spacial

Nice reference! And, from the reference:

and thus gender difference in spatial ability may be linked to a difference in spatial experience, rather than actual difference in innate spatial ability. Indeed, University of Toronto researchers have discovered that differences between men and women on some tasks that require spatial skills are largely eliminated after both groups play a video game for only a few hours

So please try again. Your citation actually refutes your own point.

Re:interesting times...

[alexo]

he says "but in reality it just hasn't happened. so we end up with segregated competitions"

My point is why is it a foregone conclusion that we end up with segregated competitions. Why can't we have integrated competitions and the woman just lose because they can't compete.

For the same reason we have weight categories in weightlifting and combat sports, the paralympics, etc.

When you were in grade school, did the 1st-graders compete against the 6th-graders?

Re:interesting times...

[Kielistic]

You are not sure what "spacial judgement" has to do with lining things up or shooting targets? Judging objects in a spacial sense has nothing to do with this? Exactly what skills do you think hitting a target requires? I'm seriously asking here.

The gender difference may be linked to other things. Whether or not it is innate is irrelevant (and in no way settled). The difference is there and is statistically significant. I am entirely unsure how someone theorizing what causes the difference refutes the difference's existence. Especially since your refutation includes a bunch of "may"s, "some"s and "largely"s. Sounds like a solid case to me.

Re:interesting times...

[gandhi_2]

I never said girls couldn't. I said that on paper they should be able to just fine, but that out in the real world it just doesn't happen.

As far as wasting their lives, I disagree. A USPSA C-classified female shooter is likely to come out on top in a gun fight against the average guy who is has only informal experience shooting junk in the desert.

Maybe they won't be a champion, but 94.9% of all USPSA shooters won't achieve what Jessie Duff has achieved in GM status.

A couple months ago a 12-ish year old girl beat me in all 6 stages of a local match.... but... uhh... i had magazine problems!

Re:interesting times...

[serviscope_minor]

You are not sure what "spacial judgement" has to do with lining things up or shooting targets?

So pray tell, how does the ability to abstractly reason about shapes affect the ability to line things up (essentially visual servoing). Are you sure your sources are for the former rather than the latter?

Exactly what skills do you think hitting a target requires? I'm seriously asking here.

It's mixed, but from the wikipedia article:

It is defined by Howard Gardner as a human computational capacity that provides the ability or mental skill to solve spatial problems of navigation, visualization of objects from different angles and space, faces or scenes recognition or to notice fine details.

Shooting targets has little to do with navigation, visualisation from different angles, face recognition or scene recognition. Perhaps recognising fine details matters a bit.

Look here is the article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

It does not support your claim.

The gender difference may be linked to other things. Whether or not it is innate is irrelevant (and in no way settled).

Did you even read the thread you're in?

Some person: physiological differences do not confer an example.
You: [citation needed] yes they do
Me: citation needed
You: here's some citations
Me: those citations do not support the point
You: whether or not it is innate is irrelevant.

Have I misrepresented the conversation there? I thought we were talking about physiological differences. Those precisely are the innate ones.

The gender difference may be linked to other things.

Yep, so your claim that it is innate is currently unfounded.

Especially since your refutation includes a bunch of "may"s, "some"s and "largely"s. Sounds like a solid case to me.

Quite. The thing is they apply equally to your claim as well as mine. Basically it says some studies show a difference and others don't when you control for external variables properly.

Look dude, you're the one who quoted that article full of mays and maybes to support your point. You now turn round and tell me how it doesn't support my point because it's not exactly definitiive. My POINT if you actually stopped to read it is that it did not support your point. Every time you cut down that article you further support my point.

In other words: [citation needed] because you have not yet presented any convincing evidence that men have a physiological advantage over women when it comes to shooting.

Re:interesting times...

[shaitand]

I see I replied in a thread specifically about shooting and your comments were targeted there. I'd missed that in my quick scan down the board. I was really talking about segregated competitions across the board and the wasting lives remarks geared toward sports people are trying to make a living at.

With regard to shooting, being accurate doesn't hurt but it isn't like you are going to be doing more than a quick panicked point and shoot in a gun fight anyway. Precision shooting is great but lets not pretend it is about being deadly rather than a fun sport built around a tool that happens to be deadly.

There is a reason an AK variant remains the most effective combat small arm for anyone but a sniper... and I'd like to think anyone farther away than the kill accurate range of an AK would run away from a dangerous situation rather than shooting.

Re:interesting times...

[gandhi_2]

When someone attacks you, you are reacting to something that is already happening. So of course, without any experience one might revert to panicked pointing and shooting. But with experience and training, you can become fast, accurate, and mindful of the elements like [ firepower, terrain, time, strengths, weaknesses, and leverage ] which MAY help you overcome a time and/or luck deficit. Panic doesn't have to be a forgone conclusion.

USPSA, and even more so, IDPA competition can help you prepare for some of these aspects. Quick and panicked is that guy I was talking about, no formal experience, at best just shooting garbage out in the desert, at worst just bought a gun and tried it once at an indoor range. Practical shooting isn't about pinpoint accuracy, it is about balancing speed, accuracy, and power to achieve the most damage in the least amount of time. And going to local matches on a regular basis provides the repetition necessary for a conditioned-response-style drilled training (read On Killing, Col. Grossman).

Watch some videos of people like Jerry Miculek.

Re:interesting times...

[Kielistic]

I am simply dumbfounded by your continued denying of spatial abilities being directly linked to marksmanship. I honestly cannot even fathom how someone could fail to realize that. Hitting a target is a spatial problem- practically by definition.

My point was supported by the fact that it is a fact (as much of a statistical fact as can be obtained) that males have stronger spatial skills than females (statistically). The only uncertainty is around people asserting that this is nurture instead of nature. There is very little reason to say that this is not a physiological difference. There is no debate about there being a difference between the genders. Do you see how that works as a reference now?

There is irrefutable evidence that males have higher spatial skills than females. Your (or anyone else's) desire to assert that this is not a physiological difference does not put the burden of proof onto me. If there is a difference between males and females the null hypothesis is that it is a physiological difference (we are physiologically different, remember). It is up to you to prove the alternative hypothesis that this is not physiological.

It being innate and physiological is largely a red-herring anyway. The gap exists and you can debate about its cause until you are blue in the face but that doesn't erase the gap. If the gap was as easy to erase as "playing a video game for 10 hours" you would think that women that train to compete in international challenges would not lag behind the men.

You reason like a creationist, "dude". "You can't prove that life came from nothing so therefore God done it."

Addendum: I just read through the research paper that "disproves" it being physiological. A total sample size of 20. 6 men and 14 women. This can be used as a reason to perform more research but to use it as a reason to assume there is no physiological difference is pretty foolish. That the only evidence that it is not physiological you have found is a statistically insignificant research paper from 2007 is not good evidence (although I do not expect Wikipedia to be state of the art or anything).

Addendum 2: Although the women had a greater improvement overall their improved position was barely higher than the men's starting position. Which also left them well below the men's improved position. I'm not sure that paper even supports the claim it is being used to support on Wikipedia.

Re:interesting times...

[gandhi_2]

UFC was more interesting before the weight classes and rounds. The old Gracie way, it was over when it was over.
The modern implementation before you today was scientifically formulated to maximize PPV revenue from people who want to see flying elbows instead of crafty omoplatas.

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

The existence of women turning in male-competitive results in these sports is evidence that they don't need to be gender-segregated. Compare to something like the hundred-meter dash, where no woman has ever managed a male-competitive performance.

Re:interesting times...

[serviscope_minor]

I am simply dumbfounded by your continued denying of spatial abilities being directly linked to marksmanship. I honestly cannot even fathom how someone could fail to realize that. Hitting a target is a spatial problem- practically by definition.

I'm dumbfounded by your continued insistence that messurable differences in spatial reasoning (i.e. the ability to reason -abstractly- about shapes) has any bearing on the veryb muc hvisual tasks of target shooting.

Seriously dude, you are the one making claims about female physiology here, not me. Measurable differences in "spatial intelligence" is for a rather specific thing and doesn't include "every skill involved in looking at something". You could try actually reading the article I quoted, for example and refuting my points rather than going on about how dumbfounded you are.

Science is about making measurements not sweeping generalisations.

My point was supported by the fact that it is a fact (as much of a statistical fact as can be obtained) that males have stronger spatial skills than females (statistically). The only uncertainty is around people asserting that this is nurture instead of nature. There is very little reason to say that this is not a physiological difference.

Do you even understand what phsyiology and nature versus nurture even are? If it's physiological then it is precisel nature and if not it is exactly due to nurture. That's the biggest possible difference given we're arguing difference in physiology here.

There is irrefutable evidence that males have higher spatial skills than females. Your (or anyone else's) desire to assert that this is not a physiological difference does not put the burden of proof onto me.

The problem with the "burden of proof" thing is it seems to lead random people on the internet that the first personto say something requires the burden of proof whereas the person (you) making the opposite claim doesn't need it merely by virtue of being second. That is not so.

YOU made the claim that women are less suited, physiologically than men. You then quoted an article that stated "men have better spatial intelligence skills on average[*] but but it's unclear that this is nature or nurture". In other words in order to support your claim that it is nature, not nurture you quoted an article that very specifically says it's not settled.

[*] And you still are apparently "dumbfounded" that I cannot understand how navigation skills and facial recognition (two of the small number of tasks in the skillset known as spatial intelligence) relate to shooting. Please will you enlighten the ignorant masses including me?

It being innate and physiological is largely a red-herring anyway.

It's only a red herring if you're a total moron. Seriously, read the posts that you, yourself wrote. We are debating about physiology. Everything else is a red herring.

You reason like a creationist, "dude". "You can't prove that life came from nothing so therefore God done it."

Except you're the one suggesting the more complex system (there's some physiological difference here between men and women that affects shooting) not me. The only claim I've made so far is that you arguments are crap and don't hold up to even the evidence you presented yourself.

In fact I very carefully avoided making claims of my own because I hoped to lead you into this trap. It appears you are so wedded to some belief that you will try everything to stick to it. You've tried pretending that we're arguing about something other than physiology here (where you originally made a claim about such, not I), you have presented evidence which directly refutes your own point on physiology (and then accused me of presenting it as bad evidence!) and you don't even seem to understand the basic definition of what the evidence is about.

Addendums

Well done! You've actually started resding through things before presenting them as evidence. There's hope for you yet!

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

Another random piece of data that floats in my mental files is that many of the biggest salmon hooked in Scottish rivers have been caught by women

("fnarr, fnarr")

Were the salmons attracted by that fish scent? *ducks*

Re:interesting times...

[RivenAleem]

You are forgetting the most simple reason, sample group and history.

Why are there fewer black olympic swimmers?

Someone might prattle off "bone density" or "melanin affecting skin density", but the real reason has been know for quite some time. Due to racial discrimination in the late 1800s and early 1900 (and not to mention slavery before that), black people were not allowed into public swimming pools, and eventually, when legally allowed, it was shunned heavily. As a result there isn't a history of swimming in black culture, so fewer of them do it. Also olympic swimming does require a certain wealthier class of person to get regular access to the pool for training, and there is still a economic divide at the highest levels between white and black athletes.

The same is with shooting, it has been male dominated for so long that there is very little impetuous for girls to get into it growing up. It's a very stereotypical father son bonding thing in the US and other countries, and speaking from my own experience, as a member of the rifle (and archery) clubs in university, it appeals more to men than to women.

So in the end you just have a smaller pool of women in shooting, and thus less chance you'll have olympic level athletes.

But really all this would mean is that if competing together, fewer women will win, but (guessing now) it is quite likely that the proportion of medals won would be somewhat close to the proportion of women active in the sport.

Re:interesting times...

[drinkypoo]

Were the salmons attracted by that fish scent?

Yeah, that's the joke.

*ducks*

I don't know, don't ducks mostly eat bugs and plants?

Re:interesting times...

[shaitand]

Let me start by saying I yield the point.

Anyone who has had quality training (formal or informal) is going to have an edge over someone who just bought a gun one day. Of course, as you said, everything is subject to time and luck.

" firepower, terrain, time, strengths, weaknesses, and leverage "

What sort of self defense situations do you think the average joe civilian is likely to find himself in? Unless we are talking about swat (and they are overdramatizing the scenario the majority of the time), military, or a zombie apocalypse in the real world you've got someone trying to murder you (or family), rape, mugging where the crook isn't willing to settle for just the cash, kidnapping, and home invasion. As far as guns are concerned Joe needs to know how to hold the weapon correctly in a tight grip with a solid stance, aim for center mass, and to only shoot if he or someone else is going to die otherwise.

If Joe civilian has the time to sit and formally categorize and assess the tactical position he's got to be the bad guy, in some less likely than a lightning strike situation (terrorists, mass shooting), or he's lost it and is going vigilante. It's not a movie, Joe shouldn't be running around taking out the armed gang that's robbing the bank.

Re:interesting times...

[Kielistic]

Your attempts at being condescending make you look like a complete idiot. "There's hope for me yet" because I read the research that you said disproved me? (Which of course did not.) You sure showed me... I guess?

Spatial reasoning and spatial intelligence is more than just abstract reasoning about shapes you bellend. For instance: " visualization of objects from different angles" [Wikipedia] would obviously be extremely helpful in skeet shooting where you have to track and predict a moving object in space. Judging distances and angles and how they relate to where you point a gun is also a spatial problem. Marksmanship involves a lot more than "looking at things".

Science is about making measurements not sweeping generalisations.

Great, so all the measurements show that males have an advantage in spatial tasks. Glad we've cleared that up.

Do you even understand what phsyiology and nature versus nurture even are?

Obviously I do. Let me dumb it down for you. Males have a statistical advantage in spatial tasks. Some people (like you) want to assert that this is not a physiological difference. There is very little reason to assume that this is not a physiological difference. Worded another way: There is very little reason to assume it is nurture.

YOU made the claim that women are less suited, physiologically than men.

No, that is not what I said at all. Someone asserted that there was no physiological advantage men have in shooting sports. That is not an assertable fact. Men have a distinct advantage which is most likely caused, at least partially, by physiological differences. To claim that it is not physiological just cannot be done.

[*] And you still are apparently "dumbfounded" that I cannot understand how navigation skills and facial recognition (two of the small number of tasks in the skillset known as spatial intelligence) relate to shooting. Please will you enlighten the ignorant masses including me?

Holy strawman! Is this the quality of your thought-process? That is an absurdly moronic thing to write. Spatial skills can bring benefit to different areas. Do you not understand that? Kind of like how they can benefit abstract math skills as well as sports skills. "Well what does Trigonometry have to do with throwing a ball?! Herp derp." Is that what you were trying to get across?

The problem with the "burden of proof" thing is it seems to lead random people on the internet that the first personto say something requires the burden of proof whereas the person (you) making the opposite claim doesn't need it merely by virtue of being second. That is not so.

Well that's why I explained the burden of proof and it clearly had nothing to do with the order of claims. Men and women are physiologically different. The default assumption when there is a significant difference between men and women is therefore that it has to do with physiological differences. What do you disagree with here? Do you think that your alternative assumption should get a higher precedence? If so- why? Did you have a point or were you just trying to poison the well and make another strawman?

We are debating about physiology.

Well really we were talking about whether or not men had an advantage.

Except you're the one suggesting the more complex system (there's some physiological difference...

Except physiological differences are not the "more complex system". We know for a fact that there are physiological differences. The "more complex system" would be if it wasn't physiological differences.

The only claim I've made so far is that you arguments are crap and don't hold up to even the evidence you presented yourself.

Men have an advantage in spatial tasks. There is no evidence that disproves or even suggests

Re:interesting times...

[serviscope_minor]

Your attempts at being condescending make you look like a complete idiot.

okey dokey.

because I read the research that you said disproved me?

The article you first pointed to actually said the opposite of what you wanted. This isn't my fault. Reading around you found a second article. That's fine. But that doesn't make the first article you pointed to support your point.

And yes, learning to read is a good thing, had you done it to start with you'd have abandoned the first article.

Spatial reasoning and spatial intelligence is more than just abstract reasoning about shapes you bellend. For instance: " visualization of objects from different angles" [Wikipedia] would obviously be extremely helpful in skeet shooting where you have to track and predict a moving object in space.

How would that help for target shooting? How would facial recognition help for either?

Judging distances and angles and how they relate to where you point a gun is also a spatial problem. Marksmanship involves a lot more than "looking at things".

It is indeed, but spatial reasoning measures very much more than that. Many of the tasks, e.g. face recognition which you persist in ignoring do not. Did you checkl the results with the irrelevant factors removed?

Great, so all the measurements show that males have an advantage in spatial tasks. Glad we've cleared that up.

Possibly. But again, it's not my fault you started off by posting bad references, even though you seem to be blaming me for it.

Except physiological differences are not the "more complex system". We know for a fact that there are physiological differences. The "more complex system" would be if it wasn't physiological differences.

No, the null hypothesis is not "men are better at it than women", because you could equally well select the opposite null hypothesis "women are better than men". So, you see there is nothing remotely null about it.

The hypothesis might be "there are differences" as you point out now, but your earlier argument was that "men are better" is the null hypothesis.

But honestly, I can only argue about what you wrote in the past not what you write in the future. If you persist on shifting like mad every time I say anything, then of course what I say in respose to what you _said_ won't have much bearing on what you say now.

What do you disagree with here?

There, nothing, but that';s not what you said earloier. Your assumption was in support of the null hypothesis that men are better at it. That was, and remains, a crappy null hypothesis. You have certainly improved things this time around!

Men have an advantage in spatial tasks. There is no evidence that disproves or even suggests that this is not physiological in nature. What exactly are you patting yourself on the back about here?

I read the article you quotes which says there is evidence that there is no difference. You quoted it in your support so the burden is on me to read it, which I did. And it said the opposite of what you wanted.

You've now found a better article that actually supports your point. That's nice: quoting articles that say the opposite is not a good debating tactic.

Yes, I am perilously surrounded by strawmen. What a clever trap. Knob.

It wasn't hard. You keep surround yourself with straw men, after all. Mostly you say something deeply dubious then claim my resonse is to a better reasoned argument that you present after my response. You don't seem to understand that I'm picking apart your original claims. Making new claims in no way invalidates my criticism of your original claims.

Perhaps you would actually care to restate your claims rather than pretending the new ones are what you meant all along when your old claims fail to stand up to any sort of scrutiny.

No- I did not. You keep repeating this but it does not make it true. I provided a citation that says that men and w

Re:interesting times...

[Kielistic]

The article you first pointed to actually said the opposite of what you wanted.

You are repeating that statement again. It doesn't say the opposite of what I wanted- it says exactly what I wanted. There is plenty of evidence that there is a physiological difference between men and women that leads to differences in spatial skills. There is some piss-poor paper that "may" indicate that the difference isn't fully physiological. It in no way indicates that there is no physiological difference. It pretty much reinforces that there is an innate difference.

How would that help for target shooting? How would facial recognition help for either?

What the hell are you talking about? What are you trying to imply here? Why do you keep bringing up facial recognition? Facial recognition is a skill that is benefited by a higher "spatial intelligence". It has nothing to do with shooting you blithering idiot. One skill can lead to benefits in two separate things. A good sense of balance can help me ride a bicycle as well as do a cartwheel. Would you be stupid enough to say "what do cartwheels have to do with riding a bike" if I said balance was good for bicycles? You want to know what facial recognition and target shooting have to do with each other? They both happen to be positively affected by spatial skills.

It is indeed, but spatial reasoning measures very much more than that. Many of the tasks, e.g. face recognition which you persist in ignoring do not. Did you checkl the results with the irrelevant factors removed?

Again with the facial recognition!? Being good at spatial reasoning can help in lots of areas. Including but not limited to facial recognition. Facial recognition is not on topic. It it literally a strawman- it has nothing to do with what we are talking about and I've said nothing about it. I have never said nor implied that facial recognition has anything to do with shooting sports. You keep trying to bring it up as a red-herring. You would have to be an idiot to think it was relevant.

Possibly. But again, it's not my fault you started off by posting bad references

No possibly. It is fully supported. I did not post a bad reference. I posted a link to the Wikipedia article stating that there are serious differences between men and women in this area. The claim that I was supporting was "males tend to perform better in spacial reasoning tasks" which is exactly what Wikipedia said.

You've now found a better article that actually supports your point. That's nice: quoting articles that say the opposite is not a good debating tactic.

I did not find a new article. I merely wrote that the article in question does not imply what you seem to think it implies.

No, the null hypothesis is not "men are better at it than women", because you could equally well select the opposite null hypothesis "women are better than men". So, you see there is nothing remotely null about it.

Strawman. Not what I said at all. I said that the null hypothesis of the root cause of differences between genders is physiological. You could make a null hypothesis of "women are better a shooting sports than men" but it would immediately be rejected because all evidence refutes it.

The hypothesis might be "there are differences" as you point out now, but your earlier argument was that "men are better" is the null hypothesis.

And that hypothesis is accepted because all evidence supports it. My statement was that "males tend to perform better in spacial reasoning tasks" which I have repeated verbatim several time. I am unsure what exactly is eluding you about this. That has nothing to do with null hypotheses.

It wasn't hard. You keep surround yourself with straw men, after all. Mostly you say something deeply dubious then cla

Re:interesting times...

[serviscope_minor]

You are repeating that statement again. It doesn't say the opposite of what I wanted- it says exactly what I wanted.

No, the articly you first pointed to had all the caveats and "may"s and "maybe"s.

You have found a second one that doesn't (well done!). That doesn't make the first one any better. If it did, then why would you have had to find the second article in the first place?

Why do you keep bringing up facial recognition?

Oh I dunno perhaps because spatial intelligence includes things such as havigation and face recognition, so these may be things being tested. You'd do well to actually understand what "spatial intelligence" means in its entirety and not just cherry pick some aspects of it over others.

Facial recognition is not on topic. It it literally a strawman- it has nothing to do with what we are talking about and I've said nothing about it.

You're not really very bright are you. Let me spell it out. If the "spatial intelligence" test measures things likle face recognition then it has little bearing on target shooting.

Dod you check that the results are to do with the aspects of what was tested are the relevant ones or not? Or are you just trying to bamboozle me with invective?

I did not find a new article. I merely wrote that the article in question does not imply what you seem to think it implies.

You pointed out the reference for the wikipeia article was not good and refuted it. That's fine. It doesn't make the use of the original wikipedia article which has the opposite meaning a good use. If ti was, why bother digging into the references.

Strawman. Not what I said at all. I said that the null hypothesis of the root cause of differences between genders is physiological.

Forget straw men, how about moving the goal posts! No, it took you about 3 posts to come to this. Go back and read your old posts.

And that hypothesis is accepted because all evidence supports it. My statement was that "males tend to perform better in spacial reasoning tasks" which I have repeated verbatim several time.

No, you specifically claimed there was a physiological reason for the difference and then used crappy evidence to back up your claim. You have since moved to more general claim and better evidence. That's fine.

It hasn't however stopped you getting your knickers in a twist over me pointing out your original claim wasn't supported by your original evidence. I'm glad you've managed to get around to a more solid argument.

It does not however make me any less wrong about your original argument. I do however take your silent change in stance as a tacit admission that I was in fact correct.

And that hypothesis is accepted because all evidence supports it. My statement was that "males tend to perform better in spacial reasoning tasks" which I have repeated verbatim several time. I am unsure what exactly is eluding you about this.

Nothing is eluding. Your lack of ability to read is causing my point to elude you. For some reason despite having improved your argument and evidence you seem unable to accept that you did a bad job of both first time. Those two are in direct contradiction with each other.

You also seem to be implying that I have an agenda to push beyond simply picking holes in your arguments.

Since you are unable to read and understand let me restate: I have at no point said that men are not on average better at spatial reasoning tasks. But, your original citation still said that that might not in fact be the case which is a pretty crappy supporting argument.

You say I've been making strawmen, don't indicate where

You're basically making up what I have claimed. I've pointed it this out repeatedly. Perhaps you should try reading what I wrote rather than raging about what you believe I wrote.

I am unsure what exactly is eluding you about this. That has nothing to do with null hypotheses.

So what would the null hypothesis in the test be then?

Re:interesting times...

[Arker]

No, I'm forgetting none of this (although some is not exactly true,) despite so many replies from people that did not grasp the thread. This was the GP I was defending;

"This is simply not true. Margeret Murdock [wikipedia.org] won a silver medal at the 1976 Olympics (she lost the battle for gold under very controversial circumstances) and set four individual world records. In the eighties, most shooting sports became gender-segregated, the only exceptions being skeet and trap, which became gender-segregated right after a woman (Zhang Shan [wikipedia.org]) had won the gold medal in the skeet competition in 1992. There are other examples as well.

So, if today's women are no longer competitive with men, then that's certainly a consequence of gender segregation and not an argument for it."

To recap, in previous times, while women may have faced some discouragement from competing, they DID compete in open competition right along with the men, and in many cases performed very well. This did not sit right with some men and so we got segregated events where women have, if we believe another poster, not produced the same sorts of scores their predecessors did shooting against men.

I am not swearing that last part is true - I dont now - but accepting it for the sake of argument, the lesson would appear to be that humans perform better when they are allowed to compete at their level as determined by skill, not gender.

Re:interesting times...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think giving them their own championship is fine.
As long as they don't mind admitting that female champion will never be as good as a man.
Because that is what it basically means.

Pay attention, people....

[mark-t]

Checking the source...

Update:
The gender restriction rule has been removed, we thank everyone who took part in this process.

I'm betting they received enough bad press and comments about it to realize that this particular approach was not the appropriate avenue to take for being "recognized",. as they say.... as equivalent to sports.

Re:Pay attention, people....

[Tridus]

They did, and they also got a negative response from Blizzard (who own the relevant game). Faced with that, they wised up.

I think you can attribute this one to stupidity more than anything else.

Oh please

[GameboyRMH]

There are sports that are a lot more physical than gaming (although 1 is also a lot more than 0) where men and women compete against each other. Online, in arcades, in split-screen games on couches - that is, in the "real world" of gaming, men and women compete against each other. I'm pretty sure in Chess, which is roughly as physical as gaming, again men and women compete against each other.

This is silly.

Handicapping should come next

[gelfling]

If you're a gay black handicapped Muslim refugee from Mexico you get +50% off the bat.

Pole vaulting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh damn! I thought this was pole dancing... I don't want to see men doing that!

Already changed

[Tridus]

This has already been changed: http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/...

There was a huge backlash on social media, which drew Blizzard's attention. Blizzard kindly made it clear that they didn't want their game being used in a male-only tournament, and the problem was fixed.

Slashdot is pretty far behind on this one.

Re:Already changed

[Guspaz]

They still have gender-specific tournaments. They've changed their policy, but they haven't fixed it.

Re:Already changed

[Anonymous Coward]

They still run segregated tournaments. There is an open for all tournament, and a women only tournament. It's just the acceptable version of segregation.

Re:Already changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, slashdot might be behind, but the rest of the media is missing a lot of interesting stuff.

One of the reasons this caused a lot of ruckus was that while all the games were divided into male/female tournaments there was no division for female Heartstone players. This caused a situation where female Heartstone players couldn't compete at all.
This could have been simple enough if one ignores that this isn't a new move by IeSF. Last year in Bucharest (?) they did a similar thing where they didn't have a male division for Starcraft II, only a female only tournament.
While there were some complaints about it it didn't cause near the same amount of shitfest since male players had plenty of other tournaments to go to and those who complained could be disregarded as misogynist assholes. (Which in most cases were pretty accurate.)

The problem is that this makes the people who complain this time around look like hypocrites since they didn't cause as much ruckus last year.
Anyway, I figured that most people had disregarded IeSF as joke organization by now but apparently enough people still takes them seriously to create headlines.

Re:Already changed

[GungaDan]

Blizzard is fine with their game being used in the female-only tournament, though. Curious. That's the change that was made, by the way. There are no longer separate tournaments for men and women. Now there is a separate tournament for women only, and one open to all.

Feminism can't even do "separate but equal" right.

...Why?

[timrod]

I know plenty of competitive game players, mostly from the competitive Team Fortress 2 scene. Now, I can understand why real sports are segregated by sex - there are irreconcilable physical differences between men and women in terms of athletic performance in some sports, thus it's simply not fair to have men competing against women. However, I don't get how this would apply to video games, where there is effectively no difference between the sexes. I have, in fact, seen female comp players who completely destroy me (largely because I don't play comp due to my favorite and only class being Engineer).

Also, there were at least two or three female runners at this year's Summer Games Done Quick. One of them did a very skilled race of Octodad against a male player, and was even ahead at one point - until the very end when she failed to get a very RNG-centric glitch to occur (the male player got it on the first try, but they both admitted that getting that glitch to occur is purely random). Another did a 7.5 hour run of Final Fantasy VI and actually out-lasted the male player she was co-opping with (from what I remember, he switched out about 5 or 6 hours in).

Re:...Why?

[Shados]

Not saying I agree with separating the sex, but I can see why you would want to.

When talking about competition like this, you're talking about the very tip top of players, at which point, differences that would be minute to insignificant day to day (practice and training trump any biological difference, even when playing football. A girl who plays football 50x more than a guy will kick his ass at it pretty much no matter what) start showing up.

At the 0.1%, maybe men can click faster, maybe women can keep track of more things at once. Who knows, but I'd be very very surprised if, all other things being equal, members of one sex or the other didn't come up drastically on top. Which one it will be? Who knows, right now women just don't have the numbers in these type of e-competition to be statistically significant, but one day, they probably will be. And then maybe we'll be like "Whoops, there was a difference after all"

Re:...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Why can't men and women compete, with the losers... losing? Even if women are statistically at a great disadvantage, why not just let them lose? Is losing a competition so bad that we have to shield the snowflakes from the experience?

Re:...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you just suck and should play in the "special" division

Re:...Why?

[RyoShin]

I don't think she's competitive, but one of the regulars on the TF2 server I usually go to is female and usually plays Medic; this doesn't sound too odd for TF2, until you go against her and find out that she is absolutely lethal with the Ubersaw (melee weapon, for non-TF2 players). If she gets the jump on someone (usually when her heal target loses uber and about to die, she'll split off and dive into the enemy team) she can easily take out two or three people with just that, and I've seen her clear half the team by a combination of luck (they had already taken moderate damage and were regrouping) and surprise.

She also likes to mock people by hiding around the corner and using a death taunt (for non-TF2 players, that's a taunt that can OKO an opposing player if it connects properly) if she knows someone is chasing her. Pretty good success rate there, too.

There are a few other players known to be female on the server who are really good, but I have no idea if they're comp or not.

Re:...Why?

[Gavagai80]

Why does boxing segregate by weight? Why not send the 100 lb guy against the 400 lb guy?

Having separate competitions gives more people a feeling that they have a legitimate chance, which makes it more entertaining and encourages more people to try the sport which ends up being good for the sport.

Re:...Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does boxing segregate by weight? Why not send the 100 lb guy against the 400 lb guy?

I don't fuckin' know. Seems more like sexist-type nonsense to me.

Having separate competitions gives more people a feeling that they have a legitimate chance, which makes it more entertaining and encourages more people to try the sport which ends up being good for the sport.

In other words, so people's feelings don't get hurt.

Well, guess what? I don't give a fuck if you're the fastest runner in the room. Outside of the room, you're nothing. Stop pretending as if you've won anything.

Most of all, I'd be pissed if people looked down on me and segregated me into some group because they thought I didn't have a chance. Screw that. I'd rather just legitimately lose.

Avatar & Silliness

[Anonymous Coward]

So, If Pat uses a male avatar, and Sam uses a female avatar which group does each contest in?

Contrived is not strong enough of a word. If I were to guess, is that they do not want a girl, trouncing a guy's ego.

Hippism?

[rnbc]

Hippism is not segregated, as far as I know, and is an olympic sport...

Re:Hippism?

[rnbc]

PS: Sorry, it's called "Equestrianism" in english, sorry :P

None of the equestrian disciplines are segregated by sex as far as I know...

Re:Hippism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the horses separated by gender? They are the ones doing the actual work.

Re:Hippism?

[WhoEvrIwant2b]

The unfortunate thing is at the college level equestrian teams are now considered a female sport in the USA so that their funding can balance out male sports due to Title 9 requiring equal spending. I have no idea how this will reflect in the sport in the long run but it certainly prevented me from competing in college where as a male I would have to pay for all of my own lessons and competitions. I doubt there will be much change in the upper levels as one of the biggest factors is still quality of horse (money) but I am curious to watch long term trends.

Re:Hippism?

[WhoEvrIwant2b]

Some races are available only to male or female horses but most non-timed competitions are open to either gender.

Re:Hippism?

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the equestrian disciplines are segregated by sex as far as I know...

Check Buzkashi/Kokpar :-) First mixed team may indicate end of certain era ....
Yes, it is sport - check Afghan Olympic Federation ....

The policy has been updated

[argStyopa]

...so that now it's only men that are excluded from some events. Victory!

Hooray for "equality"....

No reason to be "outraged."

[B33rNinj4]

First, using the word "segregated" is a bit too strong in this case. Yes, it still means separation, but for many, it carries a different history. That being said, I don't agree with their policy on separation by gender. I think it's kind of pointless in an eSports format, and I'm glad someone is finally drawing attention to it. However, the vitriol and excessive anger is highly inappropriate, and it makes me disappointed in people like Wil Wheaton and others who have been up in arms about a policy that was put in place several YEARS ago. Where was the anger then? Where was the eSports community's rage then? Chess is still separated this way. Where's the anger? Yes, it's not equal. Yes, it should change. The gnashing of teeth and the pounding of fists needs to stop though. It's a little late to become that pissed off.

That sounds sexist

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm reading that as "girls, join gaming for the benefit of young horny teenage boys who'll gawk at you, hit on you, etc"

I'd prefer if girls join gaming for their own benefit.

Re:That sounds sexist

[Cardoor]

sorry you read it that way. not my intention at all it wasnt addressed 'at' girls in any way, and more importantly, it was meant as a joke addressed to all the current and former dorky teens (myself very much included) who yearned for a girlfriend amidst their social ineptitude. p.s. i question what 'benefit' joining gaming is for anyone really, beyond entertainment value (isnt that the point?). not exactly curing cancer. but it is fun.

Re:That sounds sexist

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I don't find the joke particularly funny.

Well, fun is a benefit. My point I think girls should join because they find it fun, not because it'll entertain the boys.

Re:That sounds sexist

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you don't find it funny. The perpetually offended never do. Get off slashdot SJW idot.

Re:That sounds sexist

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this is funny, me being called an SJW

It's the OP who is cheering for the decision. But then he made this joke of his, and I'm merely pointing out how his joke can actually be interpreted as offensive to women.

In other words, I'm pointing out how even people who think they're against sexism (read: the real SJWs out there) are in fact sexist themselves

Sports VS competition

[phorm]

I dunno, I've always equated "sport" with some physical activity. Certainly gaming can be a competition, but is it really a sport? Similar I've heard of chess tournaments referred to as competitions rather than as sports.

Re:Sports VS competition

[Anonymous Coward]

From the other side, I associate sport with direct competition. Usually, but not always, physical. So Chess as a sport makes sense to me, but e.g figure skating does not. It may be a very pleasant and healthy activity, but without any real competition (and no, currying points from judges on aesthetic or political grounds does not count) it's clearly not a sport.

YMMV.

Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, normal sports are segregated so that there can be top athletes who are non-male.

This allows them to inspire young women to be good in sports.

Women are allowed to compete in maie competetitions, they just don't stand a chance in almost all sports.

I hardly ever watch E-sports, or normal sports.
But if women are grossly underrepresented the same could be true there?

I dunno.

Missing the point

[Andtalath]

Sorry for repost, but I want to see potential feedback and was AC.

Basically, normal sports are segregated so that there can be top athletes who are non-male.

This allows them to inspire young women to be good in sports.

Women are allowed to compete in maie competetitions, they just don't stand a chance in almost all sports.

I hardly ever watch E-sports, or normal sports.
But if women are grossly underrepresented the same could be true there?

I dunno.

Re:to help future generations of dorky male teens.

[GNious]

im old now and happily married..

So trick to being happily married is to be old ... makes sense .. :)

no surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

No real surprise considering the number of misogynist nerds out there.

Sure, there was enough outrage to make them change their policy, but the policy should have never been enacted in the firs place--and that is the real problem.

Cargo-Cult Sociology

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like in programming, this line of thinking clearly translates down to "I have no idea what I'm doing, and I have no idea what the consequences of these choices are, but I'm just going to bang at things until something works or everything breaks."

Sounds like good description of Orc Mek Boy.
I never understood why we have gender segregation in sport. It is probably design flaw from Victorian era and "boys only" schools and "mens only" clubs. Perhaps it is middle aged men fear "what if I will be defeated by woman!"
The champion - "There can be only one" ;-)

Re:Like we need to discourage the fairer sex any m

[IgnitusBoyone]

It took along time for females to compete in ski jumping at the Olympics. The international community in general needs to desegregate a lot of sports. Unless you can really show a sharp division between female and male participants over the history of the sport I feel they should have the opportunities to compete together. In addition if you can meet the qualifications and show no equivalent tournament exist you should be able to enlist.

ummm

[shaitand]

How is it any less sexist if they retain "all-women" competitions?

Easy to get around

[viperidaenz]

Just select a male/female avatar.

Beach Volleyball

[DarthVain]

I think the real reason is popularity and ratings.

I think it is very easy to say that there are WAY more guys playing video games than girls. Of that ratio, I would also say it is very easy to assume that of that subset it is even further segregated by having WAY more guys interested in playing e-sports than girls also. Due to the simple inequity in numbers, girls and guys being equal at e-sports aside, very few girls will make it anywhere in e-sports. The same way as making a hockey team out of Canadians who have a population of say 1,000,000 who play the Hockey, VS say Italy who have maybe 1,000. If you make a sports league, how many Italians will make the big show? Answer: Zero.

Add to that, the ONLY people that actually watch or pay any money to e-sports, are people already in e-sports or gamers, who as already discussed are predominantly all male. Do you know what would be more popular than today's e-sports? Female e-sports, the cuter the better. Well they be as good as the guys? Hell no. Does it matter? Nope. They would probably have more viewership than the guys, simply due to the audience. Bare in mind these are all YOUNG guys also for the most part.

Anyway, call it right or wrong, but I would bet that is where it was coming from. Probably even more so if lead by a bunch of sexist Koreans. Heck I remember a thing in gamer news a few years ago about a girl gamer group that had everyone fixated for awhile... Anyway if you market is young males, combining girls and video games is not a bad way to make money and popularity.

I think it is a numbers game, and to include girls on any meaningful level you need to segregate, and while maybe not for completely altruistic reasons, not really in the sexist guys are better at video games than girls... Heck if you wanted to really spin it, I would say it might be a good way to draw more interest of girls to the sport, increasing population, allowing for fairer competition eventually among the sexes...

Re:Beach Volleyball

[geniice]

Doubtful. Even hormonal young men are capable of focusing on other things. If they are watching a DOTA game they want to see the best non rat DOTA game possible and are prepared to stop thinking about sex long enough to so.

Re:Beach Volleyball

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on the money. These guys are not there because of feelings, they're there for money. They know sex sells. They know males play better. If they join males and females the top players will be male and that makes selling the female players difficult. So by separating into two leagues ("skill" and "girls who won't have sex with you") they can attract two audiences and maximize profits.
Capitalism, ho!

@Sir-gold - Re:simple fix

[nukenerd]

there are a lot of Olympic sports that [are not objective] (high-dive, gymnastics,etc) ... By your definition, any sport that is subjectively rated by technique, instead of objectively rated by pre-defined goals, isn't a sport.

Whether they are called a sport or not (and there will always be people who do those things, why not) yes, they should not be in the Olympics. I have briefly watched some of them and it is obvious that some of the judges give scores politically. The Olympics have become over-sized and over-blown anyway : I could hardly believe it when synchronised swimming (dancing in water) was allowed in. Flower arranging next?

Re:Like we need to discourage the fairer sex any m

[nukenerd]

Unless you can really show a sharp division between female and male participants over the history of the sport I feel they should have the opportunities to compete together.

Nothing to do with history, just that in the more physical sports most women would have a poor chance against the men (yes I know that distributions have tails). In my own sport, cycling, there is about 3-4mph difference between the best men and the best women. It is generally the women themselves who want separate championships, even if they are also allowed to enter men's races.

When I rode in local-level road races, there was often a particular girl in the field (among the 39 guys). She was never likely to win, being probably about average among us, but it was her way of keeping in form for her "serious" women's races. She was the World No 6 in women's road racing at the time.

Not really reversed

[mattack2]

It wasn't really reversed. They made the "male" version all genders, but still have all female competitions.

They should just have all open events. (They also have female poker tournaments, and every once in a while, a guy wears a dress and enters it.)

Make it like chess

[fredprado]

I am all for a single competition for both sexes, as long as we don`t have people whining that women are being discriminated because there are not "enough" of them at the top.

But if they really think they need a female only competition make it like chess.

Chess has a female ranking and a universal ranking. Any person, woman or man who wants to compete in the universal ranking can as long as they have the necessary ELO.

What should I do?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm male, but usually play online games using female accounts. Which branch do I join now?

Finish eSports male players

[trastomatic]

So all Finish eSports male players are also Female players? Problem solved.

Chess

[Anonymous Coward]

What about chess? why should chess players be separated?